Borderlines
by eternata
Summary: [During timeskip, Nejicentric] Someone wants the Sand and the Leaf to go to war. They're not doing a very good job of it, but the principle of the matter remains.
1. Chapter 1

I don't quite know why I'm writing Neji fic, seeing as I don't especially like him or know how to characterise him. This is set during the timeskip period, several weeks after Naruto leaves the village to train. Expect gratuitous amounts of Shikamaru and the Sand siblings to show up because, unlike Neji, I actually like them! 

I don't often attempt to write multi-chapter fic with actual cohesive plots. Feedback appreciated.

Notes: I keep in Japanese honorifics, items (like weapons and forehead protectors) and I use the English and Japanese names of the villages interchangeably; otherwise I try to keep everything in English. Usagi ringo, or bunny apples, are apple slices with the peel cut so that it looks like bunny ears. Very cute.

* * *

Borderlines

* * *

It wasn't supposed to be anywhere near this complicated.

The days after the giant debacle that was Sasuke's defection and the subsequent disastrous rescue attempt are spent idling - Tsunade-sama refuses to discharge him from the hospital until she's sure that he's fully recovered, which is almost a month after he feels completely ready to leave. The forced inactivity wears on him - he's never been fond of hospitals, and while Hinata thoughtfully leaves him several books and makes time to visit him, in between her own training and missions, there's only so far that reading and meditation can take him.

His team drops by whenever they can, too, of course, although some of their more boisterous visits make him wish that they wouldn't. He doesn't mind Tenten, who's usually content with sitting by his bed and peeling /usagi/ apples for him, cutting bunny ears into the apple peel expertly with a kunai (he vaguely wants to protest, but he decides not to insult Tenten by implying that she keeps her weapons anything less than perfectly clean), but he sometimes feels as though /he's/ the teacher who should be reminding Lee and his sensei to speak in indoor voices. He's not actually certain that they /have/ indoor voices.

Then, there are the others - Shikamaru, who's there when he wakes up, guilt and relief on that normally inexpressive face; Kiba, cradling his injured puppy in careful arms; Naruto, who comes in through the window at a time which has very little resemblance to visiting hours, and is chased away by a nurse after he babbles something much too fast for Neji to catch. (It's Shikamaru who later tells him that Naruto has left the village, and his hospitalisation only chafes the worse after that.)

Hiashi-sama refuses to allow him on any missions for three weeks after his actual release from the hospital, and while knows better than to protest the command and that his uncle is genuinely concerned, it does very little to improve his mood. He's stopped thinking of the Hyuuga compound as a cage, but despite its size, he feels almost claustrophobic, trapped with little but boredom for company. (He can't even spar with Hinata or his team - Hiashi-sama also refuses to let him participate in anything strenuous, but he can admit to himself that it's mostly Hinata's worry, an almost tangible thing, which keeps him quiescent to his uncle's wishes.)

So it is that even though the first mission he's offered after his forced hiatus is almost insulting, a B-ranked messenger errand which was only bumped that high due to the distances involved, he accepts without protest. Anything to get him moving - he thinks that if he stays in the family complex any longer, he might snap and end up re-enacting the Uchiha massacre, or something similarly dramatic. (It's probably crass to mock the Uchiha tragedy, but Neji thinks that if Sasuke really was concerned about the honour of his family name, he picked an odd way to show it.

He makes good time, travelling at night so the oppressive heat that is Fire Country in the middle of summer won't slow him down; it isn't as though the darkness poses any hindrance to him.

He reaches the rendezvous point - Iseto, a small trade village that's almost on the border, closer to the Hidden Mist and Hidden Sand than it is to the Leaf - a full day before schedule, allowing him to check the streets for signs of anything out of place. It's peaceful, despite its potentially volatile position as a border town; he decides against purchasing a particularly fine pair of daggers (Grass Country-make) that Tenten would appreciate - he'd feel a little obligated to pick something up for Lee, as well, and while Tenten would just thank him and perhaps offer to help him sharpen his weapons sometime, Lee might cry.

Instead, he opts to check into the closest thing that the town has to an inn, which isn't anything impressive, but is, at the very least, clean.

He doesn't sleep deeply, because he's a ninja and he rather likes being alive, but he does sleep fairly well. Nothing trips his rudimentary alarms during the night (his ability to lay more complicated traps limited due to the fact that civilian areas tend not to appreciate loud explosions or extensive property damage) - he's well rested when he meets his contact at a small field just outside town, the grass yellowing and dried-out, crunching under his feet (he allows it to, for politeness' sake) and scratching at his shins uncomfortably.

She's a slim girl, just a little shorter than he is, with a Sand hitai-ate tied carelessly around her neck. They exchange codewords and pleasantries, then she attempts to stab him in the eye.

He dodges the first strike, and disarms her on the second, with a tap to the forearm that seals the chakra points and numbs her grip. She curses, fumbles gracelessly at her weapon pouch, coming up with another kunai that she holds in an awkward overhand grip (he had been under the impression that Sand ninja were trained better than this). He ignores a clumsy block (it doesn't feel as though she's unused to carrying weapons, just unused to carrying /these/ weapons), feints to the right, and drives a chakra-laden palm into her heart.

Neji learned early (when he was four years old) that there's nothing clean or neat about death, but the Hyuuga clan's style comes close. The Sand ninja staggers back several steps, eyes wide, collapses onto suddenly-weak legs, and coughs. One hand goes to her chest, the other still hanging limply by her side, and she keeps coughing as she sinks to hands and knees, and finally to the ground.

He eyes her warily for any signs of breathing - playing dead was one of the most basic ambush tactics taught at the academy - but over a minute goes by without the slightest hint of movement, and to his byakugan, her chakra is a weak, fading thing. He rolls her over with a foot (while he doesn't lack respect for the dead, she /did/ just try to kill him). There's no message scroll in her weapon pouch - there are barely any weapons in there, a sorry collection of several shuriken and a last kunai. Her forehead protector is unmistakably marked with the symbol of the Sand, but he has doubts that she's even a ninja at all, much less one of the proud Suna.

Nothing left on her body explains this sudden, bizarre turn of events. He considers, briefly, the idea that the original messenger had been intercepted and killed, but her fighting hardly matched what he would expect of any organisation skillful enough to torture the codewords out of a ninja. So... the mission itself had been a set-up? Another attempt to steal the secrets of the Hyuuga clan? There was no way the client could have guaranteed that a Hyuuga took this particular mission, however, and -

And from the way his new opponents are attempting to approach him from behind, they don't even know that they're facing a member of the Hyuuga clan right now. He makes a brief count - six men, Sand hitai-ate displayed just as prominently, their aggression clear but void of killing intent; hardly a threat, if the girl is any indication. If they don't want to kill him, and they don't want his eyes, then... while he doesn't like to admit it, he has absolutely no idea what is going on.

The easiest thing to do now would be to kill them all and let Tsunade-sama sort them out, but something in him balks at that idea. Maybe he's been around Naruto and Rock Lee for too long, but he has a premonition that he's about to get into something messy - /troublesome/, even - and leaving it to someone else to solve feels like giving up, and people like them don't know the meaning of that phrase.

It really wasn't supposed to this complicated.


	2. Chapter 2

This chapter brought to you by China. No, really. There was nothing else to do on the bus. 

The problem I've identified with writing from Neji's point of view is that essentially, he's boring as hell. This chapter is going to be split into two parts. Or rather, I planned everything up to the breakout then got tired of writing.

* * *

Borderlines

* * *

Getting caught takes actual effort.

The only man posing any threat is one wielding a long, curved-edge blade - an odd choice of weapon for a shinobi, but the way he moves with it is practiced, if graceless. Their actions speak of training, but they're working with several disadvantages: they're not ninja, they're not aiming to kill, and also, they are apparently _retarded_. Even with a six to one advantage, it takes an inordinately long time (made longer by the unforgiving afternoon sun) before one of them gets in a lucky shot which clips him stingingly above the ear.

It's nowhere near debilitating, but Neji weighs the current situation against his pride, then rolls his eyes (it's a good thing that no one can tell when a Hyuuga does that, or he'd have been punished for disrespect far more as a child) and allows his legs to crumple underneath him.

It doesn't take long for Neji's already-poor mood to become far worse. To his irritation, feigning unconsciousness doesn't make his would-be captors inclined to talk. Or, at least, to talk of anything remotely useful - after half a day of blather, Neji begins to regret his decision a little. While killing them all wouldn't have been very _productive_, it would have been more _satisfying_, at least, he thinks darkly.

Then they reach their destination, and suddenly, Neji finds himself a lot more interested.

He recognises the compound as one of Konoha's abandoned border stations, where forest meets the scratchy tundra of the unclaimed land between Fire and Wind, left in disrepair ever since the attack of the Nine-tails, when the village had needed every able hand that it could gather. Konoha had recovered - it was the way of the Leaf to recover - but it had never been able to reman them, and with the Sound's recent attack, it likely never would.

It's run-down, stone worn smooth from sand, wind and sun, but it shows definite signs of being lived in. Interesting, he thinks, or at least Tsunade-sama will think so; there's nothing more fascinating than people pretending to be allied ninjas illegally crossing their borders and boarding on their land, after all. She'll probably also find the genin teams assigned to patrol the border very interesting - Neji would feel sorry for them, but he's not in one of the most sympathetic moods at the moment, for forgivable reasons.

The room he's lead to is windowless and smells strongly of dust and disuse, but it's not unclean. He's not surprised when they dump him inside and leave, bar and lock scraping loudly into place on the other side of the door. It's a common tactic - leaving the prisoner to their own imagination and anticipation saves Konoha's T&I personnel more than half the work sometimes.

Instead of wasting energy worrying about what they might want or do, Neji opts to sit back against the cool wall and take a nap.

Hours later, he's alert instantly at the sound of footsteps outside, but keeps his eyes closed - _don't let them know you're awake_, his textbook says in his academy sensei's voice.

The door opens. Neji tenses, listens to the soft scrape of metal against stone -

Then it closes again, and footsteps fade down the corridor. He blinks, opens his eyes, and stares at the door and the tray that's now sitting innocuously in front of it. Apparently, instead of interrogation and possible torture, they're bringing him... dinner. Although, Neji thinks, looking at the tray's contents with distaste, the two may as well be synonymous.

He decides to eat anyway - they've gone through too much trouble to kill him through poisoning now, intentionally or otherwise.

The room he's in is entirely windowless, light shining in dimly from under the door and a narrow window cut into the wood. The easiest way to measure the passage of days is through the summer heat which leeches into the stone walls in the afternoon, and fades at night. Sometimes voices filter in, loud and muffled, but none of the conversations tell him anything that he needs to hear, and no one addresses him directly, not even the person who brings in the meal trays (twice a day, at regular intervals).

Keeping a person in suspense is all very good, he thinks, but this is a little excessive.

On the fifth day, the routine breaks. The door opens several hours before he's come to expect lunch and a figure in a Konoha chuunin vest is unceremoniously tossed inside. Neji blinks and looks up, but the lock is already being slid into place, the sound of wood against wood scraping at his ears. He eyes the newcomer - he's got rather a better impression of the chuunin in his own village than _this_, and while their sorry attempts at imitating Sand ninja are almost amusing, he'd be less than impressed if they decided to expand their repertoire into Konoha.

Then the newcomer sits up with a muffled groan and swears, and that voice - a mix of laconic irritation - is something unmistakeably familiar.

"_Shikamaru_?"

He's lost his hairtie somewhere along the way, his hair falling across his face in a rough tangle, and a spectacular bruise is purpling on one high cheekbone, but it _is _Shikamaru.

"Ugh, they didn't need to hit me," Shikamaru gripes, then, "Hey, Neji."

"What are you doing here?" he asks.

Shikamaru doesn't answer for a moment, flicking a glance towards the door, then back to him. At his nod, Shikamaru relaxes, lacing his fingers behind his head as he leans back against the wall.

"It's a funny story," he starts in his customary drawl, and from the look on his face, Neji is pretty sure that it's not going to be very funny, or a story that he'll enjoy very much. "So I'm on a week's leave, right, when Hokage-sama calls me to her office, and tells me that they appear to have misplaced a Hyuuga, and could I please go make sure he hasn't followed Sasuke's stellar example and become a missing-nin."

His tone is so bland that Neji takes several seconds to fully understand the sentence, and when he does, he's not sure to be insulted or outraged. He can understand that the village is on edge after the Uchiha's defection, but...

Neji suspects sometimes that Tsunade-sama thinks she's funny. When he doesn't voice a reply (he's pretty sure his expression speaks for him, however), Shikamaru cocks an eyebrow at him.

"You haven't, right?"

"Pardon?"

"Become a missing-nin?"

"NO," Neji says.

"Good," Shikamaru says, closing his eyes, as though that's the end of the conversation, and as far as he's concerned, it probably is. "I didn't feel like dying today."

Neji knows first hand just how capable Shikamaru is, and has a healthy amount of respect for him, but sometimes, the idea that someone like Shikamaru made chuunin before he did is very irritating. Filling Shikamaru in on the situation doesn't take long, mostly because - as galling as it is to admit - Neji doesn't have any idea what the situation actually is. Shikamaru agrees with his assessment. Or rather, he says that the whole thing way too troublesome, which Neji takes as agreement.

"It's not our kind of mess," he says, pushing his hair out of his eyes for the dozenth time and shooting Neji an appraising look, as though weighing the cost versus benefit of attempting to knock Neji out and stealing his hairtie. "May as well let Hokage-sama handle it. If I give you a diversion, can you get us out?"

Neji considers.

"How big a diversion?"

Shikamaru's answering grin is faint, and shows teeth.

"Big," he says.

Getting out won't be a problem, diversion or not, and it's nothing to do with their abilities or knowledge, but he knows that Shikamaru is right. Whatever is going on, he's known from the beginning that it wasn't their kind of mess. Five wasted days or not, and as clumsy as these people are, this is edging on an international incident.

"Let me have a few days," Neji says instead.

Shikamaru shrugs, not irritably.

"I thought you'd say that," he says, and tilts his head back, as though looking up through stone to view an imaginary sky.

* * *

Coming in chapter 3: Chess and explosions, two great tastes, taste great together!


	3. Chapter 3

This chapter did not want to end! The breakout was actually scheduled for the next morning, but I decided that there were only so many games of chess I could write about Neji losing. Yes, it's quite likely that chess doesn't exist in the world, since all we see them playing is shougi, but the notations for blind shougi just didn't scan. Thank you for your reviews, they keep me going! 

Notes: Shikamaru's least favorite food really is hard-boiled eggs. I have no idea why, as they strike me as one of the least offensive foods imaginable.

* * *

Borderlines

* * *

They're pressed against the side of the cooler stone wall when footsteps approach the cell again, their silence bringing the rhythmic thudding into sharp relief - they'd discussed the situation casually for a while, or as casually as they could considering the circumstances, but the midafternoon heat baking into the still air of the room had left them with no desire to participate in more idle speculation. Shikamaru's good at putting facts together, no matter how insignificant they seem, but part of this skill lies in his ability to tell fact and rampant fantasy apart.

The door swings open in now-familiar routine, metal trays skidding against the rough stone. From where he's sitting, he can see the flash of dark clothes and the dull gleam of a metal scabbard through the gap. At least two this time, he decides, and armed with the same long, curved-edge blade that isn't common to ninja. (But it is something he's seen private guards carry, and Neji files the thought away for further consideration.) Shikamaru flicks a glance down to the trays, then to the door which is already swinging closed, then--

Shikamaru is a better actor than Neji would have given him credit for, if he hadn't already seen him in action. Neji supposes it's because Shikamaru genuinely doesn't care about what people think of him, which is a novel concept to Neji, who's been raised to maintain the integrity of his family's name since before he could even speak.

"The Sand and Leaf are allies!" Shikamaru calls out to the door, sounding suitably betrayed, although it's a good thing that he's not sitting anywhere visible to the outside, because his posture is completely relaxed and his expression hasn't changed at all.

When he gets no reply, Shikamaru just rolls his eyes.

"Didn't really expect that to work," he mutters once the sound of footsteps has completely died away, dragging the trays over and sliding one over to Neji. "I hate eggs," he sighs.

"Don't be picky," Neji replies automatically, without censure.

"My mom makes me peel them for the deer," Shikamaru says, settling the tray on his knees. "Forty eggs, _every day_. You'd be put off too."

He raises an eyebrow, but accepts the hard-boiled egg that Shikamaru passes to him, cracking the shell against the edge of the metal and peeling it off in two halves. "You feed eggs to your deer?"

"Only during winter," Shikamaru shrugs. "We used to lose a lot of the young ones, but the mix seems to help."

"I see," Neji nods, although he doesn't particularly. The most the Hyuuga clan rears is fish, ornamental koi in the main garden and a smaller pond at the back, and Neji has never particularly felt an emotional attachment to them. The Nara clan's deer supply a number of Konoha's medicinal needs, but all fish really do is die.

When they're done, Neji stacks their trays together neatly and leaves them next to the door. Shikamaru lies back, making a pillow of his arms.

"Who would benefit if the Sand and Leaf went to war?" Shikamaru asks the ceiling absently. They've already been over this topic, but he supposes it's more personal for Shikamaru. Neji respects the Sand as allies, but he doesn't care much either way about them, and although he never paid much attention to it, Shikamaru's relation to that strange team from Suna had been the topic of some gossip for a while.

Neji's answer remains the same.

"Who wouldn't?"

Shikamaru makes a displeased noise of agreement, and the room lapses into silence again, still but not uncomfortable. As far as partners in incarceration go, Neji could do worse - he tries to imagine being trapped in a small space on an impromptu espionage mission with someone like Naruto or Lee, winces, then decides just as soon to stop imagining it.

At dinner, Shikamaru tries a different tactic.

"Konoha will be looking for us," he says, almost threateningly, but both men ignore him. Shikamaru slumps against the wall.

"They could at least interrogate us," he says disgustedly, and although Neji doesn't reply, he rather agrees.

Later, when the last remnants of afternoon heat has finally leeched out of the room, leaving cool, dry stone in its wake, Shikamaru is the one who breaks the silence. Drowsy from the heat, Neji's been half-working on the theory of a new technique, a variation on the _kaiten _that he'd discussed with Hiashi-sama, half-considering the situation, and hitting dead ends in both. He doesn't know what Shikamaru has been thinking about - from experience, it could be anything from a sudden epiphany to last Tuesday's lunch - but the interruption is welcome.

"Do you play chess?" Shikamaru asks. Neji blinks, tries his best to think of any way chess could help in any grand master plan of Shikamaru's without bordering on the ridiculous, and comes up blank.

"I am familiar with the rules," he says cautiously.

"Good," Shikamaru says, then, "Knight to C3."

Apparently, the grand master plan is that Shikamaru is bored.

Neji is more familiar with _go_ - he played with Hinata while trapped in the hospital and clan grounds, and the fluidity of the game suits her more than the rules and occasional viciousness of chess or shougi. They were always evenly matched, although their styles were nothing alike. Hinata favoured playing low, he remembers; cautious, defensive games. Like the willow, Hinata won by yielding.

It's not hard to imagine a chess board and pieces, though, and after several moments, Neji moves a pawn.

He loses two games in quick succession. They take the third game more slowly - either Neji is getting the hang of it and posing a bigger challenge, forcing Shikamaru to think about his moves more closely, or Shikamaru is falling asleep. He sacrifices a bishop in a bid to halt the white queen's advance, but instead of retreating, Shikamaru pushes a daring pawn ahead, and Neji is the one who falls asleep while weighing out the threat of Shikamaru's queen and a knight hovering too close to the edge of the board.

He wakes up with a crick in his neck, hair on his face, and feeling more well-rested than he has all week. Ignoring a feeling of vague embarrassment, Neji glances over at Shikamaru. He hasn't changed positions and his eyes are closed, but Neji can tell that he's awake.

"How long was I asleep?" he asks.

Shikamaru tells him.

"Almost eight hours?" In a hostile situation, without even an hourly check - he's appalled at his carelessness, but instead of showing sympathy or disapproval, Shikamaru says that it's Neji's turn to move.

Shikamaru is a difficult person to be self-conscious around. Neji admits to forgetting the board of their half-finished game, and they begin a new one amiably enough. This time, Neji takes white.

He's becoming more familiar with Shikamaru's style - he uses his most powerful pieces almost as an afterthought, but he's wickedly creative with his knights and pawns, the weakest and most erratic pieces; their last game, he'd put Neji's king in check using nothing but three pawns and a careful diversion with a rook. It may have been easier to spot on a real board, but Neji's past being the kind of person who makes excuses.

The door opens during one of Shikamaru's turns, but he barely looks up - either too distracted or given up on trying to communicate with the false Sand ninjas. And either the imposters are equally distracted or getting careless, because the door remains open long enough for him to see their faces clearly. One of them is more a boy than anything else, although he's probably no younger than Shikamaru, and he recognises the other as one of the men from Iseto.

That evening, they're more careless still.

He can hear the noises of argument all the way up the hall, even through the thick wood of the door which swings open with vehemence. The trays are almost thrown inside, missing Shikamaru's outstretched leg by inches. Shikamaru doesn't bother pulling it back, but he does raise a curious eyebrow, closing his mouth at Neji's gesture for silence.

They're still arguing as the door slams closed. Echoes destroy the first part of the sentence, but the rest filters in clearly.

"...keeping them around for, they're ninja!"

"Then you tell Daisuke-sama that we..."

He exchanges a glance with Shikamaru. A name isn't much, but it's someplace to start, and they've wasted enough time here.

Also, he really wants to wash his hair.

Shikamaru's still looking at him, he realises. When he nods, Shikamaru folds his fingers into a familiar seal, the symbol for release.

"_Kai_," he says, and somewhere in the compound to their right, an explosion - the familiar /_pop-BANG_/ of explosive tags detonated too close to flashbangs - causes the stones around them to tremble. Neji is slightly impressed - he respects Shikamaru, but it's more for his grasp of strategy than his skill at fighting, and maintaining a jutsu as delicate as a tripwire for such a long period of time takes a significant amount of chakra control.

The door splinters into kindling under his foot, a second explosion almost throwing him off-balance. Shikamaru doesn't look concerned, though, so he just kicks pieces of dry wood out of their way. A quick check with the byakugan and they're out of the room, making their way expertly down the hall, away from the shouting and general mayhem. Shikamaru's obviously scouted through the place before he went looking for Neji, and his own byakugan keeps them from turning into dead ends.

The third explosion takes them both by surprise. It's strong enough to crack tile under their feet, and only Neji hauling him back by the arm keeps Shikamaru from pitching head-first into a wall.

Neji glances over at Shikamaru's expression of 'that wasn't supposed to happen'.

"When you said 'big'..."

"I didn't mean _this _big."

By silent, mutual agreement, they speed up, Shikamaru leading them to a discreet door which opens to the outside of the complex. The evening air isn't very cool and it's tainted with smoke which clings to the back of his throat, but it's still a relief after being locked inside for so many days. It doesn't take them long to find the back wall and scale up. It's wide enough to balance comfortably at the top, and they crouch in the shadow of a tree to survey the damage.

"...I definitely didn't mean this big," Shikamaru says blankly, and Neji can understand the shock in his voice. He's feeling rather stunned himself, because almost half the compound is ruined, smoke rising up thick and black, almost impossible to see past. When the wind changes direction, teasing the charred cloud in their direction, he coughs harshly and frowns.

The acrid smell hanging in the air is slightly familiar, something he's come across before, distinct but not common.

"Gunpowder," he says, and Shikamaru's reply sums up his feelings on the matter succintly.

"Shit."

Things just got even more complicated.

* * *

Next chapter: Rest, relaxation and oh yeah, a funeral. 


End file.
